Crime in Schools Fell Sharply Over Decade, Survey Shows

By FOX BUTTERFIELD

Published: November 30, 2004

Correction Appended

Crime in the nation's schools fell sharply from 1992 to 2002, part of the broad decline in crime in the last decade, according to a report issued yesterday by the Justice Department and the Department of Education.

School crime over that period dropped to an annual rate of 24 violent incidents per 100,000 students from 48 violent incidents, the report found. The figures were based on a nationwide random sample of students who were asked whether they had been victims of crime.

In 2002, students 12 to 18 years old were more likely to be victims of serious violent crime away from school than at school, the report said.

In addition, it said, in the 12 months from July 1999 to June 2000, 16 students were victims of homicide at their schools, only 1 percent of homicide victims among school-age children over that span.

Despite those encouraging findings, the report included a number of warnings that bullying, violent crime, drinking and drugs remained a serious problem at many schools.

For example, it found that 659,000 students had been victims of violent crimes, including rape, robbery and aggravated assault, while at school in 2002. An additional 1.1 million students said they had been victims of theft at school that year.

The next year, 7 percent of students said they had been bullied while at school. Moreover, 21 percent of high school students reported the presence of street gangs in their schools. And students attending 20 percent of public schools reported that those schools had experienced one or more serious violent crimes in the 1999-2000 school year.

Further, 5 percent of high school students in 2003 said they had had at least one drink of alcohol on school property in the last 30 days, 22 percent said they had used marijuana either at school or somewhere else, and 29 percent said they had been approached with offers to give or sell them illegal drugs on school grounds within the past year.

The study also found that teachers were often at risk of crimes committed by students. From 1998 to 2002, teachers were victims of 144,000 thefts by students and 90,000 violent crimes. In 1999, a total of 9 percent of all teachers were threatened with injury by a student, and 4 percent were physically attacked by a student, according to the report.

On the positive side, from 1993 to 2003 the number of high school students who reported carrying a gun or a knife to school dropped to 6 percent from 12 percent.

Among students 12 to 18 years old who reported being bullied in 2003, the highest rate, 10 percent, was at schools in rural areas, while those in urban and suburban areas averaged 7 percent. Private schools had the lowest rate of bullying, 5 percent.

The figures were compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Justice Department; the Department of Education; the National Crime Victimization Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau; and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Correction: December 6, 2004, Monday
An article on Tuesday about a nationwide drop in school crime in recent years misstated the rate of violent crime in schools and referred incompletely to the student population studied. The rate in 2002 was 24 violent incidents per 1,000 students aged 12 to 18 -- not per 100,000 students of all ages. The rate in 1992 was 48 incidents per 1,000 students aged 12 to 18.

Surveys estimated that in 2002 a total of 659,000 students aged 12 to 18 were victims of violent crimes, not 659,000 students of all ages. In 2003, 7 percent of students aged 12 to 18 reported having been bullied in the six months before the survey -- not 7 percent of all students that year.